Wee Read - The Great Big Spider

Early Literacy Tip of the Week:

When playing with your child, make sure to follow his lead. If he isn’t interested in the activity, he probably won’t learn much from it so move on.

Good Morning

Hello, How are You?

The Great Big Spider

--from Lapsit Services for the Very Young II by Linda L. Ernst. New York: Neal-Schuman Publishers, Inc, 2001.

*Substitute the words "great, big" for "itsy bitsy". Use big arm gestures instead of fingers.

Open Shut Them

Book One

The Very Busy Spider by Eric Carle

Tall as a Tree

--I’m a Little Teapot: Presenting Preschool Storytime by Jane Cobb. Vancouver, BC: Black Sheep Press, 1996.

There’s a Spider on the Floor – with puppet

--Raffi

One Elephant Went Out to Play

One Elephant went out to play

Upon a spider’s web one day

He had such enormous fun

He called another elephant to come.

(HEY, ELEPHANT!)

Two elephants went out to play

Upon a spider’s web one day

They had such enormous fun,

They called another elephant to come…

etc.

--Miss Mary Liberry

I Wiggle My Fingers

Book Two

The Itsy Bitsy Spider by Lorianne Siomades 

Humpty Dumpty Up

Humpty Dumpty up,

And Humpty Dumpty down.

Humpty Dumpty left,

Humpty Dumpty right,

Humpty Dumpty all around.

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall;

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.

Poor Humpty Dumpty (smiling).

--Jim Thomas

Eyes and Nose

--Storytime Crafts: Crazy Days by Kathryn Totten. Ft. Atkinson, WI: Upstart Books, 2004.

Read Together

Little Miss Muffet by Tracey Campbell Pearson

The More We Get Together

Storytime - Ahhhhh! Spiders!

Toddler

Books 

The Very Busy Spider by Eric Carle and The Itsy Bitsy Spider by Lorianne Siomades.

Songs / Rhymes: “Good Morning”, “Hello, How Are You?”, “Open, Shut Them”, “There’s a Spider on the Floor” with spider puppet, “One Elephant Went Out to Play” on the felt board, “I Wiggle My Fingers”, “The Great Big Spider”, and “The More We Get Together”.

Craft: Hand Print Spiders. Materials: black construction paper hand prints, purple paper, googly eyes, crayons, glue, and tape. The toddlers glued the thumbs of their hand prints together to make a spider. They glued eyes onto their spiders and then colored them in.

Preschool

Books: The Very Busy Spider by Eric Carle and I Love Bugs by Emma Dodd. The preschoolers helped me read Carle’s book by supplying the sounds of the animals.

Songs / Rhymes: “Welcome to the Library”, “Hello, How Are You?”, “The Great Big Spider”, “Open, Shut Them”, “There’s a Spider on the Floor” with spider puppet, “I Wiggle My Fingers”, and “The More We Get Together”.

Special Activity: The preschoolers shared with me what they knew about spiders. They knew that spiders make webs, have eight legs, and eat flies and other bugs. They even knew that spiders trap flies in their sticky webs!

Craft: Spider Webs. Materials: black construction paper, construction paper crayons, glue, and glitter. The preschoolers drew their webs onto the construction paper using the crayons, then went over the lines with glue. I added white glitter to their papers when they were finished.

Songs/Rhymes

There’s a Spider on the Floor (with spider puppet)

--Raffi

One Elephant Went Out to Play

One Elephant went out to play

Upon a spider’s web one day

He had such enormous fun

He called another elephant to come.

(HEY, ELEPHANT!)

Two elephants went out to play

Upon a spider’s web one day

They had such enormous fun,

They called another elephant to come…

--Miss Mary Liberry

The Great Big Spider

--from Lapsit Services for the Very Young II by Linda L. Ernst. New York: Neal-Schuman Publishers, Inc, 2001.

*I do this version instead of itsy bitsy because, as Ernst suggests in her book, it's easier for the smaller children to do gross motor movements than the fine motor skills involved in the finger play.